Delegating is an important and effective time management tool no matter who you are but I am going to focus on how and why parents (um moms) should use delegation at home. So why don’t some parents delegate? There are many reasons why parents (or people in general) resist delegating tasks. Delegation takes planning ahead of time. Some feel they don’t know how or what to delegate. If this is you, it may be more difficult but delegation is a learn-able skill. Perfectionism is a common reason. Many parents (um moms) think that tasks need to be done a particular way. Let this go! Truly if the laundry isn’t folded a certain way or the dishwasher is load differently the world will come to an end. I tried it out and sure enough we are all still here. Crisis lover; is this you? Some people actually love to be the center of chaos. This causes so much necessary stress. You may be the lesser version – you may need to be the caretaker. Really Dad can be caretaker; everyone would benefit from allowing him to be. Some don’t understand the amazing benefits of delegation, instead, they feel that their children are only kids once and should be allowed to have fun or have an over focus on academics. These are the kids who go off to college that end up need help to be basic things like laundry, simply cooking and sewing on a button.
Why should parents delegate? Our lives are overscheduled (so are our children’s but that is a different blog). Delegating helps relieve the parent’s workload which is good but not the most important reason. As good parents we want are children to be prepare for life-all of it. Childhood and adolescences is a training ground. It’s where making mistakes and failure are normal and expected. No one likes it but it is how people learn best. Delegation teaches children responsibility (i.e. chores), builds teamwork (yes, your family is a team of sorts), allows everyone to use their skill set (who doesn’t like to hear “Hey you do _____ the best so will you_____.”), and teaches new skills (i.e. I don’t what my kid to not know how to do the laundry when he/she goes off the college.) Most importantly it helps children and teens develop executive function skills (i.e. organization, time management, prioritizing, and many more) that is not used don’t develop.
What can parents delegate? Pretty much anything! I love to cook but don’t have as much time in the evenings as I need to cook every night. A few years ago, I started having my children and my husband cook dinner once a week. My son makes great homemade pizza (crust and everything) but we started with simpler meals slowly teaching him more cooking skills. There is definitely an investment of time to teach a new skill but now that he knows the basics he has fewer questions and I am free to do other tasks I need to get done. There are five of us cooking so that leaves two nights of leftovers or fending for yourself. My kids are older so this works (they have other chores too) but even when they were younger, they had chores and always more than their friends. Even a two year old can help out in small ways. Click Daily Chores by Age for a list. I am not implying your kids should do all of these chores; pick what works for your family.
Delegating will help you out and build important skills for your children!